“No.”

“I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

“Come on, Bay, I’m pulling the car around back,” Sydney called, and Bay ran to her mother.

“Bay, do you like strawberry Pop-Tarts?” Claire asked.

Bay smiled, and it was Sydney’s smile made over. It almost hurt Claire to look at, remembering all the things she wished she could take back from when Sydney was a child, like chasing Sydney out of the garden when she wanted to see what Claire and their grandmother were doing and hiding recipes on high shelves so Sydney would never know their secrets. Claire had always wondered if she was the one who made Sydney hate being a Waverley. Was this child going to hate everything Waverley too? Bay didn’t know it, but she had a gift. Maybe Claire could teach her to use it. Claire didn’t know if she and Sydney would ever reconcile, or even how long she was going to stay, but maybe she could try to make up for what she’d done with Bay.

In mere minutes, Claire’s life had changed. Her grandmother had taken in Claire and Sydney. Claire would do the same for Sydney and Bay. No questions asked. It’s what a true Waverley did.

“Pop-Tarts are my favorite!” Bay said.

Sydney looked startled. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t,” Claire said, turning toward the house. “Evanelle did.”

Sydney parked the Subaru beside a white minivan at the back of the house, in front of the detached garage. Bay hopped out, but Sydney got out a little slower. She took her tote bag and Bay’s backpack, then she went around to the back of the car and unscrewed the Washington State license plate. She stuffed it into her bag. There. No clues as to where they’d been.

Bay was standing in the driveway that separated the house from the garden. “This is really where we’re going to live?” she asked, for about the sixteenth time since they’d pulled in front of the house that morning.

Sydney took a deep breath. God, she couldn’t believe it. “Yes.”

“It’s a princess house.” She turned and pointed to the open gate. “Can I go see the flowers?”

“No. Those are Claire’s flowers.” She heard a thud and watched an apple roll out of the garden and stop at her feet. She stared at it for a moment. No one in her family ever found anything odd about having a tree that told the future and threw apples at people. Still, it was a better welcome than Claire had given her. She kicked the apple back into the garden. “And stay away from the apple tree.”

“I don’t like apples.”

Sydney went to her knees in front of Bay. She pushed the little girl’s hair behind her ears and straightened her shirt. “Okay, what’s your name?”

“Bay Waverley.”

“And where were you born?”

“On a Greyhound bus.”

“Who is your father?”

“I don’t know who he is.”

“Where are you from?”

“Everywhere.”

She took her daughter’s hands. “You understand why you have to say these things, don’t you?”